Any sober analysis of America’s confrontation with Iran should tell us that the carrier battle groups can achieve no meaningful or positive political objectives should they be ordered to attack. The United States could order its land forces to somehow invade the country, but is there anyone who believes that such an extreme and unfathomable action would create a favorable outcome with what would be horrific costs?

Yet these considerations apparently remain lost to our political leaders — who cling to misguided beliefs that bombing and war will somehow create favorable outcomes — as undefined as those outcomes might be.